The Tower, page 8
Mass booing ensued, but the sorceress quieted everyone with a wave of her hands. “Okay, he wants proof, then proof he shall have.” Walking around him, she waved her hands in the air. “Nothing up my sleeve, agreed?” He nodded. “You feel like taking a flight? Get ready, sucker!” Her eyes flashed; she was cheesed off big-time. The moron on the stage smirked and turned to the audience, gesturing that Tenkita was a total loser. The expression on his face when she levitated him up and spun him around so fast he started to hurl in mid-air was priceless.
After that, Tenkita brought him down, and holding him up with a single hand, pushed him forcefully against the wall, pulling off his clothes with her power one piece at a time. He begged her to stop once she got down to his shorts. “I guess no one wants to see the invisible!” she called out. Yeah, this lady was old but she had some bite, alright. Everyone started laughing like crazy, me included; he just stood there with a vicious scowl on his face. Being owned was not his thing.
“Are you satisfied now I’m not a fake?” she asked him.
“Yeah…yeah,” was all he could get out. His face was a mess and he looked ready to kill her and everyone else in the room.
“Then get out,” she ordered. “I’m not here for your amusement, young man…”
“…but he was here for ours!” someone called out from the audience and everyone once again erupted in laughter.
Mr. I-Just-Got-Owned stalked off the stage and up the aisle, glaring at Dan, Cathy, and me as he passed by. He looked to where his date had been sitting; she’d left the room. The jerk then walked out, a look of menace written all over his face and I felt I’d made an enemy.
“Thank you all and good night!” Tenkita sang out, and then levitated herself to disappear somewhere in the rafters. We all filed out, shaking our heads in amazement.
“Some show, eh, Bill?” Dan asked me as we were leaving.
“Yeah, it was great!” In spite of Mr. Moron, I’d had a really good time. Back on the Promenade Deck, Dan and Cathy said goodnight and turned to leave. Before going, however, Cathy came over to me and said, “Dan told me you had some trouble settling in. Don’t worry; I’m sure things will work out. Hang in there, okay?” And then she was gone.
Yeah, hang in there. Well, at least Dan had somebody, and Cathy seemed like a nice person. I’d only had the one kiss from Oriana and I wondered again what she saw in me.
Seven: Another Brush With Reality
A few days after the show, I took a walk after my shift. Work had gone well, I earned some praise from everyone and actually felt things were going my way. Oriana was still on my mind but she hadn’t been around for the last little while. I tried knocking on her door a couple of times. There’d been no response, so either she was mad at me for something or maybe she just wasn’t interested.
On my way to the lift, I accidentally bumped into a tall, beefy guy who was with two equally large friends. They all looked as if they didn’t like anyone or anything getting in their way; I tried to move but going around brick walls wasn’t on the menu and I couldn’t get out of the way in time. “Oops, sorry,” I said.
The biggest of the three looked at me, and I remembered him from the performance; Mr. Jerk, the guy who’d been owned by Tenkita. He looked at me, more closely this time, and a nasty little smile started to form on his face.
“Oops?”
Suddenly, I had the feeling that this guy wanted to make it personal. Oh, yeah, I’d seen that look before; the memories of the grinning, sweaty faces of the Elites and Tweeners who liked beating on me came rushing back. These guys looked like the jock bullies from my school. Fortunately, there were no lockers around to get shoved into and really, it could all be talked out, couldn’t it?
It couldn’t.
The look on the leader’s face told me all I had to know; I was gonna get my ass kicked. I’d seen that look before and knew this guy had the IQ of an eggplant. He just eyed me and said, “Well, Mr. Oops, because of you, my girl don’t wanna see me anymore. Whatta you think about that?”
“She showed good judgment?” That wasn’t the wisest thing to say and he put his hand on my shoulder, crushing it; I could feel my bones grating.
“Real funny, pal!” he said acidly. “That old lady was a fake and all you had to do was shut your mouth and go with it but no, you screwed it up and now I’m going solo again.” That had to be the dumbest reason for punching someone out I’d ever heard of. All I had to do was look at his dull eyes and face and I knew that he was the kind who enjoyed trashing others.
“Sorry,” I said, wincing in pain.
“You’re sorry,” he repeated and turned to his friends. “Mr. Oops is sorry, guys. Well, I accept his apology,” he sneered, then grabbed me by the throat. “And where are you off to?” he asked. Not that he cared, the expression on his face told me that he was enjoying all this and wanted to punish me a bit before whipping my butt, of that I was certain. His grip eased but only by a little.
“Nowhere special,” I managed to get out.
“Well, buddy, we wouldn’t want you to be late for any appointments you have, especially when you’re going nowhere.” He released me and shoved me to the floor. Nodding to his friends, his buddies grabbed my arms, pulled me up and held me fast.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Struggling did me no good as there were three of them and one of me. Ever had the feeling you were going to be toast? That feeling was coming at me, right now. “Hey, you bastards, lemme go!” I yelled. First time in my life I ever came close to swearing and hey, guess what? They weren’t all that impressed.
In fact, they weren’t impressed at all. The lead idiot pushed a button on the lift and the doors opened. Before throwing me inside, he delivered a solid shot to my gut which left me on my knees gasping for air, and then I was kicked inside the elevator. On the way down, he called out, “Ask the old lady to wave her hand and save your punk ass!” followed by the sounds of palms being slapped. Look who just got owned and as usual, I’d done nothing.
By default, the elevator sent me down to Waste Disposal at the bottom of the ship and I was fuming, hurt, and angry beyond belief. That dude was a Class-A jerk and I hadn’t done anything except take it in the gut like all those times before. Back in my dimension swearing was frowned on; since I wasn’t there anymore, I did let out a string of curses and felt like bawling, but didn’t. Man up and all that crap.
The next morning, I was still cheesed off, and it showed. Burnt a whole stack of waffles and over-boiled the eggs. No one said a word, except Big Gelt, the guy I’d seen on patrol the night of the levitation show.
“Eggs are a little rubbery today, guy,” he opined, but took them anyway. “Take it easy, guy,” he said, and then went to eat with another Ultra. As he sat down, he touched a button on his arm and a type of computer-generated mirror sprang up; he styled his blonde hair, and after checking that everything was perfect, closed the image and started eating. Someone told me that his hair was gray and that he dyed it every week.
Whatever. Fake hair color or no, his day was okay but mine wasn’t. The other members of the cafeteria crew sensed something was wrong, but left me to my own misery. It wasn’t their problem. I thought that it was just a one-time hazing thing, but again, I had a lot to learn. Jerks like this just couldn’t let it go.
And wouldn’t you know it, one of The Unholy Three came in as I was clearing up, doing his best to feign clumsiness and knock my trays over. Saw that the name on his uniform read “Sal.” He was just like the jerks I knew not so long ago in school…
“Make me a sammich, boy,” he kept saying. Sammich? Maybe he meant “sandwich” and I wasn’t about to make him anything. He kept dogging me and all the while I was hoping and praying that someone would step in and stop this. No, this time, I was on my own, but all the same, wasn’t anyone going do anything?
A hand the size of a bear’s paw fell on Sal’s shoulder and turned him around. He looked into the eyes of a very big man with a shock of fiery red hair and a face that looked like a clenched fist. “That’s Blue Lancer,” Gwyneth whispered to me excitedly. “You do not want to mess with him.”
No, I did not and neither did the other man. Lancer looked at Sal and asked him coldly, “Is there a problem with the way Bill’s picking up the dishes?”
“No, sir,” the other man muttered quietly and mumbled an apology. However, that wasn’t enough. Lancer clamped his hand on the moron’s shoulder and dragged him over to where I was standing. “Apologize to him,” he ordered and squeezed the idiot’s neck, a move which made the other guy wince. “Do it now,” he said very quietly.
“I’m sorry,” the jerk mumbled, and Lancer let him go. Sal left the Commissary quickly and Lancer went back to his table. While the jerk that’d dogged me was a big dude, over six feet and solidly built, Lancer was much broader in the shoulders, and Gwyneth told me he had the reputation of a tough hand-to-hand fighter. Plus, the rack of adjustable lances he had slung over his shoulder did a lot to dissuade others from trying anything. They were special lances that carried a variety of payloads: Stun lances, bomb lances, net lances and so on, and I remembered seeing on the Net archives footage of him hurling them at crooks who thought they could get away. Lancer never missed and many of the crooks ended up with concussions. Nasty stuff, but very effective.
Potential brawl over and damn, my heart wouldn’t slow down. I felt shaky, and looked around; no one made eye contact with me. I couldn’t tell if they were ashamed for me or of me. Work went back to normal, but I heard one guy say: “Sal really punked the beanpole.”
Blue Lancer had finished eating. He’d been sitting with a woman named Skree, his girlfriend. She was a pretty redhead wearing a white mini-skirt and white leather jacket, white thigh-high boots completed the outfit. They’d been looking at me and Skree whispered something to Lancer; guess they felt sorry for me. Lancer just nodded and walked out of the room. Skree made eye contact with me and motioned with her head as if to say, “Follow him.”
I did. Taking off my apron and walking outside, I caught up to BL in the corridor. He was striding along, heading for the lift and I called his name. He heard me and turned around. Facing me was a man in a dark blue bodysuit, a mask which did nothing to hide his mean-looking face and a holster of vicious-looking weapons. On my planet, this outfit would’ve been laughed at but here was another story, and he seemed like the type who wouldn’t take laughter all that lightly.
“What do you want?” That sort of caught me off-balance; guess I sort of expected to find him sympathetic. He wasn’t. He spoke with an edge to his voice, as if expecting something bad to happen. Well, his breakfast had been ruined by the jerk and I was indirectly responsible for it.
Keeping the quaver out of my voice, I said, “I’m sorry; that guy in there was looking to start something with me.”
“Yeah, why you?” Once again, there was that hard-assed tone so I figured that it was time to lay it all out.
I shrugged. “I’m the new guy. Maybe they feel they’ve got something to prove.”
Lancer looked me squarely in the eye. “Maybe someday you’ll have to prove something to them. We can’t always be around and I got my job to do, just like everyone else. New guy or not, best to watch out for yourself, don’t you think?” Before I could say anything else, he walked into the lift and the doors closed; once again, I was on my own.
But Lancer had been right: Nut up or shut up. Time for empowerment. Crap, just remembered that word and hated it but in this case it fit. The question was, what to do and how to do it? I didn’t know anything about self-defense, had only seen a few kung-fu movies, and looked like a straw with arms and legs.
Dan’s words came back to me about the gym. Was that my answer? Saw a few heavy punching bags, speed bags, weights and benches plus a whole array of machines which I didn’t have a clue about. Something about a “ninety-five pound weakling” flashed through my mind. That was laughable and after a few moments of indecision I walked in.
It was empty, save for one person punching a speed-bag with a steady tattoo of his fists. Ed Morgan, also known as “Crazyman,” another character I’d read up on. Ex-champion wrestler and Muay Thai artist; he’d grown up on the streets of New York, learned to fight the hard way on the streets, back alleys and underground fight clubs and brought himself up to be the best in both sports. He’d retired from the ring at the age of 35, the all-time greatest, opened up a boxing and martial arts gym and kept on training. He became a pretty fair boxer, although never a champion.
However, he soon grew bored with training others and became a mercenary, doing wet-work for a variety of shadowy agencies and high-paying private individuals. He’d shown a change of heart after a near-death experience when he was rescued by none other than Avenger himself; out of gratitude, he’d volunteered to come aboard the Tower and help out.
I took a look at the bag, gave it a shove. The damn thing was heavy. I took another look over my shoulder at the ex-champ; his focus was on the bag he was pummeling and he paid no attention to me. Thanks a lot for your concern, champ. Not knowing what to do, I started whacking the bag as hard as I could. My fists soon started to bleed and my arms felt as if they were about to fall off, but I kept at it until….
“Hey, you.” Crazyman, sweatshirt, track pants and all, had come over to stare at the human swizzle-stick whacking uselessly at the bag.
“What?” I stopped punching.
Shaking his head, he grabbed my shoulders and kicked my legs apart into a more stable stance. “Kid,” he said in a gravelly tough-guy voice, “Y’can’t punch worth spit. I just seen it, y’can hit, for a skinny guy y’can hit, but y’can’t punch. In a fight, you’d get clobbered.” He was right, I’d never won a fight in my life.
He reset my stance again and then directed me toward the bag. “One-two, one-two,” he repeated. “From the hips, that’s where the power comes from; not the shoulders.” I was clueless about how to stand and punch so he got in front of the bag and said, “Watch me.” He threw a few punches while I observed his stance; when I faced the bag and threw a couple of punches, he started nodding with approval.
“Snap into it again, kid.” I noticed that his right eye was slightly turned in and his left eye sort of wandered, he actually looked a bit schizoid…but I didn’t dare tell him that. “C’mon, kid,” he repeated. “I ain’t gettin’ any younger. snap into it, Slim Jimmy!”
Resetting my stance, I started to shuffle a bit more confidently, trying to find my own style; it didn’t seem so awkward this time. Crazyman turned away and searched in a storage closet, took out an old pair of boxing mitts and fitted them on my hands.
“In the ring, kid—let’s see if you c’n hit me.” He saw the look on my face. “Don’t worry, I won’t hitcha back. Let’s see what ya got.” He got in ahead of me. All I saw was this huge back and muscles the size of small grapefruits around the base of his neck. His bald head looked like a pea and he wanted me to hit him?
Let’s see what you got. Apparently, it wasn’t a lot. I tried to hit him, but couldn’t lay a glove anywhere near his body. Bobbing, ducking, weaving, he evaded every shot I threw; as big as he was he was also much faster than I expected. I felt totally inept and he knew it from my expression. I’d given up even before I’d started.
“Time!” he said. Exhausted, I dropped my hands. “Keep ’em up!” he ordered sharply. “Guy you’re fighting ain’t gonna wait a minute’s rest and he don’t care if yer tired.” His eyes had a half-wild gleam in them now. “He’ll lay ya out and all you’ll be doing is the counting-the-holes-in-the ceiling-thing. He might even do worse ’n that!
Get ’em up!”
For the next twelve minutes, he taught me the finer points of sparring, blocking, jabbing, and ducking. Just when I thought it was all over, Oriana walked by. Turning my head to greet her, I was rewarded with a right hook to the face that made me see the solar system explode into a blinding flash of light. One shot was all it took to send me to the canvas; I woke up, staring blindly at the ceiling. Standing over me Crazyman said simply, “Eyes on whom yer fighting, kid. Pretty girls can wait.”
That summed it all up.
* * *
Thirty minutes later. My head and jaw still hurt, I was sitting in the ring with an icepack on my face and could feel my left eye starting to swell. Crazyman had spoken to Oriana a bit and then left; she’d stayed behind to help me out. Made me wonder why she was here in the first place. Kiss or no kiss, I figured that I was just another one-time thing to her….
“Where the hell did you get that idea?” she asked, sounding a bit peeved. “Look, I had to go on an interstellar mission for more than two weeks and didn’t have time to get a message to you. If I’d had the time, I would’ve contacted you, ’kay?”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
She smiled a bit. “Apology accepted,” she said. “I did miss you, y’know, but Association business has to come first. I like doin’ my own thing but a job’s a job. That’s how it is around here, got it?”
Yeah….
“And if I wasn’t thinking ’bout you I wouldn’t have gone looking, y’know?” she finished off. I nodded and admitted that I’d thought she wasn’t interested in me.
Her reaction was to shake her head, apparently at my lack of understanding in these matters of the heart. “Bill, don’t be stupid; I’m not that way and never will be.” A pause, and then, “Now what in the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. “Boxing? What’s up with that?” I shrugged. “You’re lucky he didn’t hit you as hard as he could have,” she continued. “You’d be in Sick Bay or worse. What’s the deal with you practicing?”
“Well, I thought that if we ever went on patrol again, better to be a participant and not an observer.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, plainly disbelieving me. “Well, you’re still on the skinny side. I just think you need to eat more and…” she hesitated, and then smiled at me…“I sorta like you…and no one else,” she added. “But if this is what you want, okay by me. Do what you wanna do.”
